About Cooperative Extension

Part of the Department's mission is to extend research-based information that helps solve practical problems. While all faculty are engaged with communities beyond the University, Cooperative Extension Specialists are particularly responsible for identifying and addressing issues critical to outside clientele. They conduct extension education programs and applied research in collaboration with a wide variety of rural and urban groups. Their work both serves and draws upon community organizations, agricultural producers and their trade associations, other resource users and managers, and public agency officials at the state, federal and local levels.

Specialists are part of the statewide U.C. Cooperative Extension network of some 400 academic staff, including county-based Farm Advisors, Home Advisors and Youth Advisors, and Specialists at other campuses and research stations. These extension colleagues and their local clientele are important sources of critical questions that stimulate research and extension activities.

Extension Efforts

Ongoing efforts include:

• Analysis of the economic impacts of public policies
• Resource use and policy
• Farm labor management practices and regulation
• Economics of pest management
• Environmental protection
• International trade and competition
• Regional development.

Many outreach activities are coordinated and housed at the UC Berkeley Center for Sustainable Resource Development, which is directed by Dave Sunding and David Zilberman. CSRD hosts events and conferences and is the home of the Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program, an international summer certificate course in sustainable environmental management.

History

• 1862 -- President Lincoln signed three acts significant in shaping U.S. Agricultural history: the act authorizing a U.S. Department of Agriculture; the Homestead Act encouraging settlement of public domain lands; and the Morrill Act establishing land grant colleges in each state and placing instruction in agriculture and home economics in American higher education.
• 1887 -- The Hatch Experiment Station Act established a cooperative bond between USDA and the nation's land grant colleges by providing annual federal funding for agricultural experiment stations in all the states.
• 1918 -- The Smith-Lever Act provided funds for cooperative administration of agricultural extension education by USDA and the state land grant colleges, with the twin purposes of increasing farm productivity and improving rural life. Formula funding intended to encourage placement of county agents was distributed on the basis of rural population.
• 1917 -- The Emergency Food Production Act Stimulated the wartime production of agricultural commodities and greatly increased the number of extension agents throughout the states.
• 1928 -- The Capper-Ketcham Act expanded extension work and encouraged agriculture and home economics in 4-H clubs.
• 1933 -- The Agricultural Adjustment Act, the federal government's response to the Great Depression, created "the new USDA." The act provided programs of direct economic assistance to farmers, emphasizing production controls and marking the beginning of government price supports. Extension agents assisted with implementing some of these programs.
• 1935 -- Declaring soil erosion a national menace, Congress established the Soil Conservation Service. It also passed the Bankhead-Jones Act expanding agricultural research and extension. For the first time formula funding was based on farm population.
• 1942 -- President Executive Order 9280 delegated increased responsibility over food production to the Secretary of Agriculture. From 1943 to 1945 federal funds provided for special additional extension staff for World War II emergency programs.
• 1945 -- The Bankhead-Flanagan Act expanded federal funding of county extension work on the basis of farm population.
• 1946-47 -- On the recommendation of the California Agricultural Research Study Committee, the state legislature greatly increased its support of research and extension work. The state's expanded share of cooperative funding enlarged the number of extension specialists in California.
• 1953 -- Congress amended the Smith-Lever Act, consolidating previous legislation, reformulating the federal share of cooperative funding, and specifying separation of extension activities from those of the Farm Bureau. The formula was again changed in 1962.
• 1961 -- Section 3(d) of the Smith-Lever Amendment was added to allow funding for special programs such as resource and community development, farm safety, urban gardening, pest management and nonpoint pollution control.
• 1969 -- The Expanded Food and Nutrition Program (EFNEP) was established under section 3(d), appropriations rising from $10 million in 1969 to $60.5 million in 1975.
• 1972 -- The federal Rural Development Act authorized expanded extension work in rural communities in nonagricultural as well as agricultural fields.
• 1973 -- Congress earmarked funds for 4-H work in urban areas and rural community development.
• 1977 -- The federal Food and Agriculture Act provided for small farm extension programs. In 1979 a small farms coordinating council was appointed by California's governor after publication of "The Family Farm Viability Study," a joint effort of Cooperative Extension, the California State Employee Development Department, and the Central Coast Counties Development Corporation, a federally funded nonprofit group.
• 1978 -- The Renewable Resources Extension Act authorized support for extension forestry and other renewable natural resources programs.
• 1985 -- The Food Security Act amended the Smith-Lever Act to allow a larger role for extension personnel in applied research activities.

Projects

Agricultural Biotechnology | Agricultural Labor Issues | Agricultural Production and Policy | California Natural Resources | Climate Change | Endangered Species and Critical Habitat | Forestry | Pest Management | Other

Agricultural Biotechnology

• David Zilberman and Greg Graff are part of the Rockefeller Foundation team to establish a clearinghouse for agricultural biotechnology. The clearinghouse will provide opportunities to transfer the rights to use this technology from companies and universities to groups that develop biotechnology and other technologies to minor and subsistence crops in developing countries.  The clearinghouse will have its own portfolio of technology rights, mechanisms for education and negotiation, and transfer of technology.  Some of the theory behind the idea is in "An Intellectual Property Clearinghouse for Agricultural Biotechnology."
• David Zilberman is also one of the founders of the International Consortium on Agricultural Biotechnology Research that meets every year in Ravello, Italy. This is a forum where Americans, Europeans, and other researchers in developing countries can meet to discuss and exchange ideas on agricultural biotechnology research. Participants have held discussions on the merits of biotechnology and how to explain problems of acceptance, and have had representatives from the EU and biotechnology companies present their perspectives.  When German universities held their first conference on the economics of agricultural biotechnology, they asked the consortium to co-sponsor it, as it had gained a reputation as an important global forum for issues related to agricultural biotechnology.
• Brian Wright is actively involved in the policy debate surrounding biotechnology and intellectual property rights.  Recently he has participated in conferences at the molecular Sciences Institute, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Berkeley Innovation Group, discussing access to biotechnology for researchers and nanotechnology initiatives.

Agricultural Labor Issues

• Howard Rosenberg provides technical information and advice in response to wide-ranging inquiries from legislative and public agency staff, growers and workers, association representatives, farm service providers, students, and journalists throughout the nation.  Among topics addressed recently are hand-work restrictions, ergonomics and safety, farm labor contracting, profit-sharing plans, aggregate demand for and supply of agricultural labor, wage and hour standards, employee handbooks, the H-2A work visa program, regulation of labor organizing and collective bargaining, foreman training, and conflict resolution.
• Howard keeps under continuous development the Agricultural Personnel Management Program website, a rich source of educational material, legal and government references, research findings, practical advice, and structured links to other resources on labor management in production agriculture, with emphasis on the industry in California.
• Howard collaborates with the AgSafe Coalition, the Center for Agricultural Business at CSU Fresno, the CA Farm Bureau, and Western Growers Association on continuing development and presentation of the Farm Labor Contractor Education Institute curriculum.
• In cooperation with these groups and Cal/OSHA, he is incorporating instruction on heat stress in seminars for licensed labor contractors and other agricultural managers.  Part of this project is to develop Spanish-language reference material that managers and foremen will use in explaining to field workers the physiology and control of heat stress.
• With support from the USDA and Farm Foundation, Howard Rosenberg works with a team of western states colleagues building education in human resource management into extension programs.  He is principal author of Ag Help Wanted: Guidelines for Managing Agricultural Labor, a book with companion website that are already in use by practicing managers, university students, and extension educators across the country.
• Under a grant from the University of California Institute for Labor and Employment, Jeff Romm is investigating with Christy Getz (an Extension specialist in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management) the formation of labor-environment coalitions in North Coast counties.

Agricultural Production and Policy

• David Zilberman is working to identify under what conditions adoption of precision farming is profitable in California agriculture, especially in cotton.
• Jeff Perloff is working with the USDA to study milk marketing laws and the possiblity of taxing fats and sugars to affect consumption behavior.

California Natural Resources

• Dave Sunding advises the California Department of Water Resources on the creation of a statewide water trading system for use during drought as well as related questions such as compensation for third party impacts caused by water transfers.
• Jeff Romm has been working with UC and Oregon State University extension on instiutional aspects of water allocation problems in the Klamath Basin. He is also working with specialists and advisors in the North Coast in developing a new system of organizing water management and development in Mendocino County.
• Jeff Romm is working with Adina Merenlender on planning and analysis of the relationship between biodiversity and secure water supply in rivers throughout California.
• Peter Berck and George Goldman recently completed a study on California beverage container recycling.
• Peter Berck has completed work on a report to the California Air Resources Board on the benefits of reducing gasoline and diesel demand.

Climate Change

• Several faculty members, (Michael Hanneman, Tony Fisher, David Sunding, and David Zilberman) are working on various aspects of climate change in agriculture and continue to present findings on these results in various forms.

Endangered Species and Critical Habitat

• Dave Sunding is working with the California Department of Fish and Game to estimate the cost of recovery of the Coho salmon in California.

Forestry

• Jeff Romm works on a continuing basis with forestry extension advisors who are involved with forest-dependent communities.
• Keith Gilless serves on a panel of experts convened by the Brookings Institute to give feedback to the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Park Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs on their proposals for implementing new federal fire management policies promoting the use of prescribed and naturally occurring fires for ecosystem management.

Pest Management

• Dave Sunding was recently appointed to a National Academy of Sciences panel charged with reviewing the adequacy and effectiveness of government measures to combat Pierce's Disease, a serious challenge confronting California agriculture.
• Working with the EPA, Dave Sunding's research on interval regulation (rules that prohibit entry into a field for a certain amount of time after pesticide spraying) has been adopted by the Agency as part of its rulemaking under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

Other

• Jeff Perloff is serving on a National Academy committee on supercomputers and is also advising the California Attorney General on energy antitrust issues.  He has a large body of research that has influenced legislation and policy on such topics as labor relations, measuring national output, tax policy and antitrust litigation.